Storyboard Text

Dr. Mason Fitch Cogswell, has just found out that his favorite daughter, Alice, is deaf after having suffered from spotted fever.

Learning to Educated the Deaf in Europe

No one will help me learn what I need to help people who can not hear.

You can come to my institute and see what we are doing to teach the deaf. I also have a student named Clerc you must meet.

You are a wonderful teacher of FSL!

At this time, Dr. Cogswell only had a few options to educate Alice. He could hire a private tutor, send her overseas to specialized schools possibly never seeing her again, or institutionalize her. None of these options were acceptable to him, so he obtained a book written by Abbé Sincard on educating deaf people.

Help is on the Way

I will help in any way I can.

A neighbor, Thomas Gallaudet, noticed Alice had no language. He took an interest in helping Alice and taught her how to write HAT in the dirt with a stick. This interest and concern for Alice led to Gallaudet going all the way to Europe to learn from successful schools there how to establish a school in Hartford that could educate the deaf.

Institution of Deaf and Dumb Persons Opened April 15, 1817

Welcome to school!

Gallaudent started his quest to learn to teach the deaf at the Braidswood school in England which wouldn't help him, keeping their methods secret. He then met a man named Sicard who invited him to the French National Institute where he learned much. Once he had run out of money and needed to return home, Sincard agreed to allow his prize student, Clerc, to go back to the US to help Gallaudent learn all he needed to establish the school.

While on the way back from France on the ship the Mary Augusta, Clerc taught Gallaudet the basics of FSL (French Sign Language) and Clerc learned English from Gallaudet. Once back in the US, they raised money to open a school of their own for the deaf.

Finally, on April 15, 1817 with Gallaudent as the Supervisor, deaf people finally had a school to attend and learn to communicate with signs. It was named the American Asylum for the Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons. The students took FSL and changed some of it to fit the native Sign they were accustomed to. This is what is now commonly known as ASL.